Page:Poems and extracts - Wordsworth.djvu/87

When I have seen by times fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age,
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watry main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;10
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate—
That time will come and take my love away.This thought is like a death, which cannot chuseBut weep to have what it so fears to lose.